


You Have A Heart And I Have A Key

by May



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:58:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8501518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May/pseuds/May
Summary: Sometimes, you can't fit things into place, even if you try. Sometimes, you just have to wait.





	

In the dour, officious light of the GCPD, Kristen was rosy. Soft curves and bright eyes in a harsh world. Her perfume was florals over the cool of water. Edward imagined it dabbed in the crook of her neck, over her pulse, and he thought about the patterns it traced. He knew tiny droplets settling on her hair, or underneath her dress, like a secret.

Men like Arnold Flass understood so little about women like Kristen Kringle, what she meant, what she brought to the dark world they all existed in. Though, obviously, Flass thrived in sordid places, where Kristen was nothing but a collection of parts. She was wasted in any world that wasn't Edward's.

If this wasn't the case, then there were connections that would make no sense, and careful lines would just trail off. And they'd make tangled knots, heavy and tight and no good to somebody who was ordinarily good with puzzles. It would take, later, simply cutting through them, so that they bled and Edward would react with a nervous, rattling laughter.

That tentative power, that waking danger, that must have been what she wanted. And it, though indirectly, led to Edward getting Kristen. That side of him, giggling and bitter and brimming with confidence, she liked that. Which made sense, because he existed just for her.

Edward was breaking through something diaphanous. The kind of blurred, slippery film that would obstruct him in so many ways, in so many parts of his life. He'd try to break it, pull it apart between his fingers and push himself against its surface.

This time, breaking through gave him Kristen Kringle, and he could touch her. She was, as he'd thought, like an oasis. Immense blue eyes stared up at him, and she was soft and vital in his arms; he could feel her heart beating, a comforting rhythm. Yet, he worried that she might, still, be somehow ephemeral. That she might disappear, or turn into something else.

Edward puts his hands on the small of Kristen's back, palms flat. Through her dress, he felt her shift and sigh at the touch. Her delicate bones and plush flesh were fragile, but certainly solid. His hands were just above where her hips swelled, and he'd always watched as they'd moved and made shapes under her skirt. He moved his hands lower, until he could touch them, finally.

Kristen sighed, again, like petals opening in warm air, and pressed against him, her full breasts against his chest. Edward didnt think that he could ever stop touching her. Kissing her was something he definitely couldn't pull away from, as if there could ever be enough. He was in harmony with himself.

Much, much later, Edward's life had become a series of increasingly grand maneuvers. It seemed as if he'd stepped from one wild thing to another. Most of all, he was at the forefront, instead of hidden and ignored in unpleasant back rooms. Something had broken, something had paid off. He even had a balancing figure in Oswald, a kind of polarity.

Isabella came into this life. She was, at first, a ghost, a clash of memory. Then, the differences made themselves known in drips. Edward observed that blonde hair turns silver under moonlight, where red hair always burns. Rather than simple sweet over pools of water, lilies and musk followed Isabella, spiced and warmly sweet. She was a bright flame in Edward's new, opulent world, as if she'd been reborn to match him.

Perhaps Kristen just couldn't have existed in his new world, maybe she needed to stay behind at the doors she opened for him. It would have, maybe, been difficult for Isabella to have existed in his old life, too vibrant for the dark, monotonous hours of the GCPD.

As she talked about the ecstacy and passion of danger and grief, Isabella's hand moved to her neck. Her delicate fingers rested against her throat, and he watched her thumb brush against the hollow where her pulse must beat. Edward thought, at this point, that he'd be able to follow the cream of lillies on her skin.

Things can circle round to where they belong. After all, a solution can hqve multiple stops to it; there can be different points to hit until the answer is made clear, when the puzzle is solved, and the game is won.

They kissed, and her body pressed against his, curved and sweet and full of promise. She moved with him, and not against him, so there was no hesitance. He placed his hands on her waist, just above her hips, and felt her body flex with need.

So Edward didn't really care to think about the line that connects the riddle of Kristen to the solution of Isabella. The way that Kristen's skin had turned heavy, cold and bruised after death is a distant mirage when he touched Isabella's cheek, running his thumb gently along her jawline. He didn't see, for a moment on the insides of his eyelids, a milky, clouded stare after he drew away after a kiss.

When he held Isabella's hand, brushing his fingertips along fine knuckles, he didn't quite remember the abrupt edge of Kristen's wrist, severed bone and cauterized veins. And, when they made love, he didn't feel the weight of Kristen's corpse ghost across his body.


End file.
